Truce
by autumn midnights
Summary: Rose Weasley doesn't particularly like Scorpius Malfoy - and he doesn't seem to like her very much either. But when they're forced to spend a night together, that may very well change. Complete. K plus for extremely mild language/content.


_Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I do not own Harry Potter._

_This is written for thefirstservant, courtesy of the Gift-Giving Extravaganza. I hope you like it! I'm sorry it isn't more romance-y...this is just what came out. I hope you enjoy it anyway!_

_Also written for the Dark Side Competition (Cookies - write something happy/fluffy) and the Greenhouses Competition (Tulip - write something happy)._

_Author's Note: I would just like to point out that this isn't compliant with the general headcanon that I base most of my stories in. Some things - like the characters' houses or personalities - are similar/the same, but the situations in this fic does not occur in my normal headcanon._

* * *

"I am going to die," I declared. It wasn't like me to be a drama queen; I generally preferred to be logical. This, however, was an extenuating circumstance. More specifically, I was locked in one of the spare dungeons of Hogwarts, with Scorpius Malfoy to keep me company. I couldn't think of a worse person to spend a night with, apart from perhaps Voldemort. Malfoy was arrogant, sarcastic, and obnoxious.

It was all part of a prank. Almost all of the seventh years, led by my own cousins James and Roxanne, had basically decided to go out with a bang. The year was nearly over; tomorrow was the day in which everybody would be leaving. Exams were finished, the House Cup had been won, and technically, none of the seventh years could get in any trouble, since they wouldn't be back. Unfortunately for us, they decided to take advantage of it.

According to what little I'd heard, they were playing minor pranks all over the school - all during the same night. Basically, everybody would wake up tomorrow and find that the school was in a state of harmlessly annoying chaos. There was a Portable Swamp somewhere, there were fireworks somewhere, and it was apparently raining in the Great Hall.

I had been heading back to the Ravenclaw common room, since it was nearly curfew, when one of the seventh years had brought me here, taken my wand, and locked me in this dungeon. With Scorpius Malfoy, who had been there before me, and which brought me back to the fact that I, no doubt, was going to die.

"We are all going to die," Malfoy said, "sooner or later."

"I'm going to die tonight." I rephrased my statement. "Because there's absolutely no way that I can spend a night locked in a room with you and survive."

"I think you'll find you're exaggerating slightly." He brushed his hair away from his face. "I don't generally kill people. I find it too messy."

"I'm not saying you're going to kill me. I'm saying that I'm going to drop dead from having to spend time with you. Your presence annoys me."

"Annoyance doesn't kill people," Malfoy responded, examining the floor with interest before sitting down. I remained standing, simply because I didn't want to copy him. We had never got on, even in first year. Now we were finishing our sixth year, and we were still verbally sparring like we had on the very first day we met. I still found him bothersome and sarcastic, and he still shot back a retort every time I started something with him. I couldn't even be sure exactly what he thought of me - perhaps that I was a know-it-all, like my roommate Nina Goldstein was always saying.

"Your face kills people."

"That the best you can do?" He raised his eyebrows, and I rolled my eyes at him. He really was quite annoying. There was a brief pause, a silence, and then he spoke again, his voice less grating than usual. "You know, Weasley, we're going to be here until morning."

"I know that."

"Perhaps we should make an effort to not argue - simply to make the time go by smoother. Come morning, we'll go back to normal."

I hesitated. The prospect of getting along with Scorpius Malfoy was not an easy thing to stomach. We had never gotten along. He did have a point, though; if we weren't bickering, the next nine or ten hours wouldn't be so torturous. "Fine," I said, glancing over at him. It must have been the dim lighting, because I couldn't help but notice that his face wasn't bad-looking. That wasn't a thought I particularly wanted to have, and I promptly shook it out of my head. "Is it actually possible for you to behave yourself, though?"

Malfoy waggled his finger at me. "See, that's the sort of thing that leads to an argument."

I folded my arms across my chest, leaning against the wall. "You and I being in the same room leads to an argument."

He inclined his head, as if to acknowledge the truth of my retort, and then pointed to the floor. "You don't want to stand for nine hours, do you?"

What I didn't want to do was agree with Malfoy, but he had a point. Sooner or later, I was going to have to sit. I slid down the wall to the floor, crossing my legs, my back against the opposite wall as Malfoy's. I was starting to get tired - I was one of those strange students who went to bed shortly after curfew most nights - but I didn't want to show it. Sleeping with Malfoy in the room was probably not the brightest idea in the world. "You're right, Malfoy," I said, stifling a yawn.

His eyes practically bugged out of his head. "Are you _tired_?"

"So what if I am?"

I half-expected him to say something about me being rude, but he refrained. "It's early! How can you be tired?" he said instead, glancing at his watch with a surprised look on his face. "Merlin, what time do you go to bed?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Right after curfew, usually." His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his face again. "Oh, will you stop it? Not everyone likes staying up until all hours of the morning, Malfoy."

"Scorpius."

"What?"

"If we're going to be civil to one another," he said, "then we should call each other by our first names. Just a suggestion."

"Fine...Scorpius." The name felt weird, coming out of my mouth. I'd never referred to him as Scorpius before. As 'Scorpius Malfoy', yes, but never solely by his first name. It felt strangely intimate - at least, for the two of us.

He smiled. "So," he said, "what do you like to do? You know, when you aren't going to bed at ten?"

I made a face at him. "I like to read," I said.

He looked pointedly at the Ravenclaw tie hanging around my neck. "How am I not surprised?"

"Er," I said, "what about you?" It felt weird to be asking Scorpius an innocent question, a question that wasn't designed to be insulting or set up a good retort for me.

"I like music," he answered. "I suck at actually making music, but I like listening to it. Muggle and Wizarding alike." He hummed part of a song; I either didn't know the song, or he was massacring the melody so badly that I didn't recognize it. "My dad's not thrilled that I have posters of Muggle bands up on my walls."

"You do?" I couldn't help but look surprised. I knew that the Malfoys weren't as prejudiced now as they had been twenty-odd years ago, but I still didn't expect any of them - even one from my generation - to actually enjoy anything Muggle. Scorpius's enjoyment of Muggle music gave him a new dimension, one that I didn't think he had. There was a bit more to him than the arrogant pureblood that I usually saw around Hogwarts.

"Surprised?" he said, a wry expression on his face.

"Yeah," I answered, adjusting my position. The dungeon floor wasn't comfortable; the seventh years hadn't provided us with blankets or pillows, and we didn't have our wands to make those things. I was simply glad that it was June, and therefore it wasn't cold. This part of the castle was positively freezing on a winter night. "That's really cool, though. I don't listen to a whole lot of music."

He shook his head. "That's not okay, you know. You gotta listen to something, sometimes. I have a whole list of radio stations, and when we get out of here, I'm going to give it to you. And then you have to promise me you'll listen to them and experience music."

"Promise," I said, an idea forming in my mind. It took a couple seconds, but then I grinned, a mischievous smile more commonly found on Lily or James. "But only if you read some of my favorite books. I have a list, too - and we're on summer holidays now, so don't give me any of that 'I don't have time' crap."

He sighed. "Fine - but only so that you listen to good music."

I chuckled and leaned back against the wall. Some of the tension and awkwardness - some of the dislike - had vanished from the room. It wasn't as uncomfortable as it had been fifteen minutes previously. I was beginning to think I actually could get away with spending a whole night in here with him; maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Everyone did have multiple parts to them, after all, and I could now see that with Scorpius. There was definitely more to him than just the persona I had seen for the past six years.

This could be the start of a friendship.

"Your cousin is one of the ones going wild out there right now, am I right?" Scorpius said, glancing out.

"Two of my cousins," I corrected, sighing. "James and Roxanne. I'm guessing you've heard of them both...they're pretty well-known around the school."

Scorpius nodded. "Anyone who hasn't heard of those two is living under a rock. They're both on the Quidditch team...they're the reason Gryffindor's won the Cup for three damn years."

"I know, right?" I shook my head. "I mean, I guess I'm on your side with that. Gryffindor can stop winning right now."

"It's Slytherin's turn," he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile.

"It's _Ravenclaw's_ turn," I retorted, but the comeback had none of my usual snappiness and sarcasm that I usually included around Scorpius. This was now purely banter between...friends. Yes, we were - at least for the night, although it certainly might continue past now - friends. The mention of Scorpius giving me a list of radio stations when we got out of here also made me think that our days of hating each other might be over. This truce may not have been just for the night.

And I was glad.

"You going on holiday during the summer?" I asked. I knew the Malfoys were rich. My family certainly wasn't poor - they all had jobs, not to mention the major parts they had played in the war allowed them to get fame and publicity, of which money was a natural consequence - but Scorpius's family was even richer. It wouldn't have surprised me if they took holidays all of the time; they certainly could afford to.

"No," he said. "My dad's not really one for holidays. And Mum doesn't really like to go away for a while without Dad. I'll be at home most of the time...reading, apparently, if you get your way. What about you?"

"I don't think so," I said. "My parents are way too busy to take too much time off. I'll just be trying to balance reading with all of this music that I apparently have to listen to. Although I do get together with family a lot."

"Yeah," he said. "Don't you have a big party right at the end of the summer? Like a farewell, before you go back to school?"

"How did you know about that?"

"Lily," he said. Lily was in Slytherin, and I knew she and Scorpius occasionally talked. The fact that she had told him about the annual party didn't surprise me; Lily always used that party as an opportunity to play a prank on someone - usually Dominique or one of the adults - and Lily loved talking about the pranks that she played.

"Of course," I said. "She's interesting, isn't she?"

"She's crazy," Scorpius answered, "but kinda cool. Although right now, I'm inclined to like you a bit more than her. She slipped a Fainting Fancy into my breakfast the other day."

"How am I not surprised?" I mumbled. Louder, I asked, "What did you do to her? She doesn't do that to just anybody."

"I tried to set her up with my roommate, who fancies her," he answered. "She didn't take kindly to it. Or him, for that matter - _he _got a Puking Pastille. I don't want to know what he tried to do."

"_Oh. _That I remember." How could I forget a Slytherin boy - who I did recognize as being in my year - randomly throwing up uncontrollably, a few mornings ago? I hadn't noticed Scorpius fainting, though; unconsciousness isn't as loud or messy as vomiting, and in the commotion I must not have noticed him. _  
_

"She's back to normal now," Scorpius said, "and not angry at me. But I still think I like you more than her. If I was locked in a dungeon with her...Merlin. That's a scary thought."

"Nobody would be stupid enough to lock Lily in a dungeon," I said, stifling another yawn.

"Am I boring you?" Scorpius's voice was teasing.

"Not at all," I said. "It's just...late."

He shook his head. "You aren't a normal teenager, Rose. Normal teenagers don't get tired before eleven o'clock at night, you know."

"I never claimed to be normal." I smirked at him. "And like you're the model of normal - you're a Malfoy that listens to Muggle music."

"I sometimes doubt that there is such a thing as 'normal'," Scorpius said pensively. "I mean, everybody's weird in some way, right?"

"Truer words have never been spoken." I stretched out on the dungeon floor, propping my head up on my arms. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to be able to get to sleep on this floor. The floor itself was cold enough to be uncomfortable on my few exposed parts of skin, even though the air itself wasn't freezing, and it was stone-hard, adding to the discomfort. I groaned. "When I get out of here...James and Roxanne are going to get it."

"Whatever you plan to do to them, I'll help," Scorpius added. He laid down as well, a few feet away from me. He was far enough away so that we weren't touching, but closer than I would have figured; there was certainly room where he could have laid down farther from me, if he wanted. I wasn't sure how to interpret that.

"So," I said a couple of minutes later, my voice quiet, "does this mean that our truce doesn't end tonight? That we'll walk out that door tomorrow morning, and things will be like this, not like how they were before tonight?"

"You're exactly right," Scorpius said, and I felt a thrill of hope. Strange, how in the course of one night - how in the course of an hour - I could go from strongly disliking somebody, to looking forward to the possibility - no, _probability - _of a friendship. That couldn't be normal. But then, Scorpius was right; who was there to say what was 'normal' and what wasn't?

It took a while, but I fell asleep, with Scorpius Malfoy by my side.


End file.
